Mourning
by KateCarter
Summary: He's lost everything...Ten/Rose implied


Mourning

By Kate Carter

Disclaimer: It's still not mine. If it was, we'd have no need for reunion fics. And I wouldn't have to spend half my summer babysitting in an attempt to earn the money for a new laptop.

Spoiler for the pictures of David Tennant and Billie Piper filming series four.

As for it being 2006 when the Doctor meets Rose...I'm going off the fact, as stated in "Father's Day," that Rose was born in 1987 (good year to be born in! D ). And she was nineteen when she met him, which would put it in 2006. Of course, then there was the whole issue of him being a year late, meaning most of the first series took place in comparatively 2007. So...the Battle of Canary Wharf should be taking place sometime late this year. If you start seeing "ghosts," don't get friendly with them.

When the Time War had ended, and Gallifrey had been destroyed, and the remains of the ships and his people and the Daleks were all that was left, the Doctor promptly found his way into Hiroshima right before the bomb fell.

The TARDIS scolded him for it, once he'd regenerated, but he didn't care. He was all that was left. He looked in a mirror and contemplated killing himself again. And again. And again. And again. And then one last time, just to end it all. To end the loneliness.

And then he decided not to, because somehow, he just couldn't bring himself to commit suicide another five times. It was just too much trouble, and the dying was such an unpleasant experience.

So instead, he redecorated the TARDIS. He went and chose clothing to better suit his new body (no more velvet and frills, he was a wool and leather man now). He sighed in the mirror at the size of his ears this time around. And then the TARDIS pointed out a signal, a very Nestene-like signal, on Earth, 2006. So even though he felt like he'd been torn apart, he went to save Earth, again.

And in the process, he met the most unlikely savior; a human girl, nineteen, and something about her just felt so _right_. And when she turned down the opportunity to travel with him, he went into the Time Vortex and sulked. He thought about it over and over, and came to the conclusion that she had really wanted to say yes, but she had felt like she shouldn't. So he decided to go back, and the words just seemed to come on their own..."Did I mention it also travels in time?"

And she ran to him, with joy on her face, and they traveled, and he loved her, oh how he loved her, and she loved him, and he regenerated, and he was so scared he'd lose her, but she chose to stay with him, and how could she ever think he'd want to leave her behind? She was his life, now, his reason for continuing.

And then he knew he'd have to give her up, and the wound in his hearts that had been created by the loss of Gallifrey and his people, and healed by Rose, seemed to open up again, bigger than ever. But she made her own mind up, and she came back, and she told him that she didn't want to leave him. And he rejoiced in the fact that she was his, his beautiful, brave Rose, and then with a sickening feeling over him he watched as she tried to get the lever back in place, and the timelines he saw, that he always saw, one began to reveal itself with perfect clarity, and he knew, and he screamed at her to hold on even as her fingers slipped and he knew what would happen. And then, even he was surprised, as the timeline took an unexpected kink and Pete appeared, just in time to catch her. And he was left alone.

He was left alone to mourn her.

He tried, oh, he tried, to get her back. But it didn't work; the best he could do was to find a hole, to slip a message through, to be cut off from saying those three fateful words. Five more seconds would have done it, but no, the universe was too cruel to grant him that.

And so, as he'd done when he'd lost his people and his home, he traveled and he saved the universe. This time, he was saved from attempting suicide again by a nice combination of factors; the appearance of a very upset, very unexpected, very irritated woman, the fact that his tenth self didn't have the slightly melodramatic personality his eighth self had possessed (although his tenth self was irritatingly chipper), and the thought that Rose had loved him in this body. It just seemed sacrilegious to change anything that had been Rose's, and if that included his body, so be it.

So the last of the Time Lords continued his lonely existence. And two years later, lying wounded and possibly dying in the street, he managed to pull himself back to consciousness just long enough to stare into a face he'd thought he'd never see again.


End file.
